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Sovereign Trust Gibraltar Announces New Managing Director And Director Of Group Strategy

Sovereign Gibraltar have announced that Nico van Zyl will be taking over the role of Managing Director of Sovereign Trust Gibraltar from John Blake, who has been appointed Director of Group Strategy of the Sovereign Group.

A statement from Sovereign Gibraltar follows below:

 

We welcome back to Gibraltar Nico van Zyl, who has worked recently been appointed Managing Director of Sovereign Trust (Gibraltar) Limited.  South African born, Nico joined Sovereign in 2013, working at the Sovereign Group’s Gibraltar headquarters. During his time as Business Development Consultant he led the European Business Development function to Estonia, Finland, Portugal and Spain.

 

Nico relocated to join Sovereign’s Mauritius subsidiary in August 2017, was appointed as Sales Director in June 2018 and as Managing Director of Sovereign Trust (Mauritius) Limited in May 2019. He also headed up East African business development focussing on corporate clients and their expansion to and from Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. Prior to moving back to Gibraltar in May 2022, Nico oversaw the rapid growth of Sovereign’s Mauritian office, from 10 to 70 staff in 5 years coupled with significant revenue increases and profitability.  Hugely experienced in global company formation and corporate services provision, especially in the e-gaming, e-money/payments and fintech, Nico has assisted a number of gaming and payments companies who are based in Europe with their corporate structuring requirements, African expansion as well as ancillary services to them, their clients and their staff. STEP qualified, Nico has been an associate member of STEP since 2014, became a full STEP member in 2018 and is also a member of the Mauritius Institute of Directors.Before his career in financial services Nico worked in the yachting industry and he is a qualified Yachtmaster, Divemaster. He also gained considerable knowledge of the tourism industry and holds a diploma in Tourism and Tour Operations.

 

Nico takes over the reins as Managing Director of Sovereign Trust Gibraltar from John Blake, who has been appointed Director of Group Strategy and will be working closely with the Group Board to identify opportunities both on acquisitions and within the operational businesses. 

John is Director of Group Strategy, working closely with the Group Board to identify opportunities both on acquisitions and within the operational businesses. Previously Managing Director of Sovereign Trust (Gibraltar) Limited, a role that he held for 2.5 years, primarily responsible for the Gibraltar office driving growth of our Corporate and Private Client divisions, he oversaw two successful acquisitions leading their seamless integration. John sits on the board of Sovereign Trust International which serves as Trustee of the Gibraltar office pensions and trust business. He holds individual director positions on certain client companies which are controlled functions approved by the Gibraltar FSC. John is also a Non-Executive Director of our Singapore board, Sovereign Management Services Pte Limited. Instrumental in creating Sovereign’s response to Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) business, John wrote and implemented our group policy on DLT and virtual assets. John also established and sits on Sovereign’s DLT Sector Committee acting as gatekeeper for business referred by group offices. John started his career in the Isle of Man in 2004 where he gained a wide range of industry experience managing complex structures for corporate and UHNW private clients. He joined Sovereign (UK) Limited in 2016 prior to relocating to Gibraltar in 2017. John is a member of the Institute of Directors, holding Awards in the role of the Director of the Board, Leadership for Directors and Strategy for Directors. He is STEP qualified and ICA Governance Risk and Compliance qualified. He is a professional member of CISI and sits on the Board of the Gibraltar Association of Trust and Company Managers. John is also a keen interviewer presenting Business Matters for Your Gibraltar TV.